


Saltwater Lungs

by mittamoo



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe- Mermaids, Fluff and Angst, Inhuman mermaids, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Technically Not Cannibalism, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 13:17:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16159718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittamoo/pseuds/mittamoo
Summary: And, involuntarily, he gasps. In that moment as the water fills his lungs peace fills his head as he can’t help but remember what his mother once told him.“You know Abram,” she’d said quietly with a tug on his hair “men that drown in the ocean do not drown in water, but instead the salt bursts veins and the men drown in their own blood”





	Saltwater Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> so its Halloween and I love mermaids so uh have this?

Mermaids, according to those that had seen them and lived, were not at all like the tales of beautiful ocean dwelling maidens luring innocent sailors to join them in the deep. In fact those who had seen the creatures described them as ugly things, creatures male and female far more akin to beasts than human. Missing humanoid ears or noses, eyes dark with two sets of eyelids; that of a human and that seem to belong more to some kind of snake. Those who had seen them spoke of their singing, not clear and tuneful but rasping a luring song of vengeance that drew its victims ever closer. The mouth that produced the haunting tune was possibly the most human part of the creatures’ face until those foolish enough to draw near could see hidden inside rows of razor sharp teeth. Too many teeth. Those who had seen them they were creatures with strong arms covered with fin and scale, strange markings circled each wrist, and hands ended in wicked claws made to cleave and tear meat from the bone. Supposedly many had been human once, set to search the oceans forevermore for those who’d condemned them to an ocean grave. Andrew, a man who did not put high stock in the fearful mumblings of others, had not seen one.

Andrew, not one to lie in general admitted that he had no particular desire to discover if such things were real or just the result of some bad food aboard a ship. He also admits that he’d prefer not to encounter one because it would make his job of protecting Kevin, a man who’d runaway from a ship that had thrown countless people to their deaths. Fighting a supposed killing machine in its own territory seems like more effort that he really wants to expend.

The crew were ashore an island when it happened, it was intended to be a break at best, a half-hearted bonding attempt at worst. It was not malicious or a danger so Andrew relished in having more room to flee the pests that made up their ‘fine’ ship. That was until a ship larger than their own had been spotted on the horizon headed toward them. Armed, cautious, and for once blessedly silent they gathered on the shore to watch the ship’s progress closer and closer still. That was when they heard it, a song without words or shape filling the air around them. Long sounds, mournful, angry. Enchanting.

Like a moth to a flame the ship edged closer before the anchor was finally dropped a short ways from the shore. A portion of rocky outcropping that sheltered soft sands from the world, what would seemingly become the final resting place of the sailors lowering their lifeboats with all the intelligence of a fly unware it is caught in the tangle of a spider’s web. Once the boats hit water and released from their ship, the singing halted. And for a while everything was quiet, the waters still almost as if there had been nothing there at all. Then, a wickedly clawed hand breaches the water.

The claws grab for one of the men and from their vantage point, Andrew along with the rest of the crew of the good ship Foxhole can see the way the claws tear flesh to ribbons as the creature pulls itself up, up, up out of the water. And with its other hand slashes across the man’s stomach, cleaving him open; intestines spilling from his gut like stuffing from a child’s toy. The man, broad-shouldered and powerful, barely had time to open his mouth and scream before he was pulled into the waters below.

Again, again, again, it happened the creature bursting from the water and pulling down its next victim. The noise was deafening as they shouted and tried desperately to escape, but alas the crew was unarmed and the creature too fast. The waters beneath them churning and frothing, red seeping out around them. Flashes of desperate limbs of terrified faces mixed with the flash of blood red scales breaking the surface of a water. Seemingly as soon as it had begun it had ended, waters stilled and the world quiet once more save the heavy breathing of those that laid witness to the massacre. An entire crew slaughtered like it was nothing by a single being.

*****

_Everything hurt, cuts bleeding while the burns bubbled and oozed he’d scream if he could. If he had anything left to scream with. He’d always known that one day he would die like this, bloodied and broken at his father’s hand but there had always been a small part of him that whispered, and sometimes hissed sounding suspiciously like his mother. Not yet, not yet. Now- even now that voice was screaming at him filling every part of his brain that this could not be the end. They’d left him alone for now, Lola and his father, and that more than anything made him nervous. The waiting. The unknown._

_When they do return at last it is not with blades and fire but with stiff, thick rope. Even as they bind him, dislocating shoulders to secure his arms fully at his back, followed by binding his legs; Neil doesn’t know what they’re planning on doing to him. Not until they drag him onto the deck and over to the side, does he realise what they plan to do to him. He doesn’t beg, in the end nothing he will do will stop his father and honestly he doesn’t have enough energy to spend on begging. Not if he wants even the smallest chance of coming out of this alive._

_When they throw him overboard, they do it without warning. There’s a moment of weightlessness then he feels nothing but biting, bitter cold. In that moment any plan he may have had evaporates into panic and instinct. Twisting and writhing in a desperate to reach the surface as he continues to sink down, down, down. Saltwater stinging his eyes covering his wounds in harsh burning pain that makes him long to gasp. But he can’t no matter how much it hurts, no matter the burning of his lungs he can’t breathe in, to breathe in will mean his death. The struggle seems to continue forever, Neil tearing his wrists open on brine hardened ropes but his twisting and straining gets weaker and weaker as his low reserves of energy run dry. And, involuntarily, he gasps. In that moment as the water fills his lungs peace fills his head as he can’t help but remember what his mother once told him._

_“You know Abram,” she’d said quietly with a tug on his hair “men that drown in the ocean do not drown in water, but instead the salt bursts veins and the men drown in their own blood”_

_The words are anything but comforting but, as Neil loses his last grasp on consciousness; he’s glad his last thoughts will be of her instead of that all-consuming panic._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! feedback and suggestions for scenes you'd like to see are always welcome!


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